It is proposed to hold a conference under the sponsorship of the New York Academy of Sciences on the subject of Calcium Transport and Cell Function. The reason for holding a multidisciplinary conference on calcium is based on the fact that calcium, long regarded as a cation of limited biological interest, has become of central interest in physicochemical, biochemical, physiological and medical research. The research focused on Ca ions is clearly interdisciplinary and interdigitation and parellelism exist in research and the experimental approaches related to the investigating of Ca ions interaction at various levels of cell organization and to the role of Ca ions in variety of cell function (protein chemistry, enzyme activity, membrane transport, cell adhesiveness and fusion, cell motility and contraction, molecular endocrinology and pharmacology, etc.). The purpose of this conference is to bring together scientists in chemistry, physics, biochemistry, biophysics, physiology, pharmacology, endocrinology and medicine to discuss the rapidly expanding Ca ions related research in their specific area of competence and to provide exchange of ideas on the various problems of Ca ions transport and the regulation by Ca ions of cellular events. The proposed conference will provide a forum for discussion on te following topics: 1) The chemistry of Ca ions and its "fitness" as a biochemical regulator and the rapidly expanding field of Ca ions ionophores, 2) Newly developed methods for studying Ca ions transport, Ca ions localization and Ca ions interactions in biological systems, 3) The Ca ions interaction and the Ca ions transport in various subcellular organelles and the control of intracellular Ca ions homeostasis in various tissues, and 4) The role of Ca ions in the regulation of key cellular functions, among them muscle contraction and endocrine and hexocrine secretion.